When Illini assistant coach Don Osborn finished competing at Indiana State, coaching was not immediately in the cards. Though he coached throughout his time in college and won a team national championship, the school's lone title, he worked as a wallpaper distributor and at a map publishing company after graduation.

That all changed in 1985, when he accepted an assistant coaching position at Illinois under former Illini head coach Yoshi Hayasaki, and he has not looked back since.

Osborn spent eight years as an assistant, helping lead the Illini to two Big Ten titles and an NCAA championship in 1989. He was then promoted to head coach in 1993, and he led the program to nearly 50 wins across three seasons.

After a successful stint at the helm of the Illini men's gymnastics program, Osborn opted to move to the junior level, where he spent nearly 20 years coaching at three different gyms. During that time, he helped guide gymnasts to the junior national team and to top universities in the country.

"That was a really exciting time," Osborn said. "It was a great group."

Though he mainly worked with high-schoolers, Osborn says there was not a significant skill disparity between gymnasts at the junior and college levels, but he admits he prefers the excitement of coaching at the collegiate level.

"It's similar because your best guys are on the same sort of track," Osborn said. "Certainly here they keep maturing, they keep learning new skills, they keep getting to a higher level. I find this a little more exciting."

Twenty years after leaving the Fighting Illini program, Osborn returned in 2015 to serve as an assistant under Justin Spring. This was also when he met current interim head coach Daniel Ribeiro, who had just been promoted to the associate head coach position.

Their relationship is one of the biggest reasons why Osborn felt comfortable staying in Champaign, and he says he had "no thought of leaving" and was instead more concerned with building the coaching staff around him.

"I think Dan respects all the years that I have coached and all the experiences that I have at the different levels that I worked," Osborn said. "We've always been very comfortable discussing things when we have differences, and we're just constantly going back and forth on different ideas. We build our program that way."

Entering his eighth season in his second stint, Osborn says he feels much more relaxed than the first time around. The successes of his gymnasts are the biggest factor in that newfound ease, but he remains as hungry as ever to lead the Illini back to the top of the Big Ten and the NCAA.

"I feel very comfortable with where I'm at as a coach and the things I've accomplished in my lifetime," Osborn said. "There's still an urgency to get guys to a certain level, and I still absolutely feel that. I can look back and say, 'Yes, I've put guys at every college. Yes, I put guys on the junior national team. Yes, I got somebody to the World Championships.' I can check off a lot of boxes and feel pretty comfortable."

Though he is the eldest coach on staff, his winning resume and experience will be essential as the Illini enter a new era. With two new coaches – Wes Haagensen and Tim McNeill – and a program determined to remain one of the top teams in the country, Osborn is ready to bring out the best in everyone.

He still feels the same excitement and anticipation every time he steps foot into Kenney Gym, the same facility the team used in the 1980s-90s, and with the experience of winning a team title as both a gymnast and a coach, Osborn knows Champaign is where he is meant to be. 

"The feeling when you walk into the gym is the same," Osborn said. "Of course, it's been rehabbed on the inside. The equipment layout, the pits, the gymnastics part of it is different. 

"But you walk in and you still have the open windows, the big high ceiling: It still feels the same. There's just a ton of history here. It's special."